Johnson County Improves Bus Service To Spite Itself

Every child in Johnson County, KS knows that bus is bad. Our relationship with the bus service ends on the first day we are able to get a driver’s license and our fine-leather-clad feet never step through a bus door again. From there on, our asses are firmly planted in the leather seats of overpriced imported cars which are mandatory in Johnson County. Once in a while we see a bus on a street or a highway and we give its invisible passengers the same look a person gives to a plumber who is about to go elbow-deep into a full toilet bowl. We distrust party buses, avoid shuttles, shun trolleys and only begrudgingly use charter buses but only when no one we know can see us.

All that said, why are we investing over $50 million into improving the bus service?

The answer is simple – pain. We experience so much pleasure in Johnson County that the only thing that can make our lives more exciting is pain.

These bus terminals are the clamps of the nipples of Johnson County.

We already have all the restaurants and stores we could possibly want; we have an IKEA coming; we stole all the jobs from across the border; and it’s 75 degrees and sunny here year round (there is a special JoCo weather forecast that the rest of you don’t get to see so you don’t feel bad about your own weather). Our gasoline contains at least 10% of finely shredded hundred dollar bills; there is a wine faucet in every house; and there is a free 3-d porn channel available with or without demand. Oh, and there are no hipsters.

Our pleasure centers are overloaded so we build something we hate just so we can feel again.

I mean we could roll $50 million into fireworks and shoot them, but we actually like fireworks. Building up a much-hated bus service seems like the most reasonable and economical solution at this time.

Aside from that you must live in one of the newer parts of JOCO… for I’ve noticed that old town, OP and more NE cities are turning….and I expect incomes are shrinking. Clearly not everyone drives an expensive import. Check the parking lots of retailers….you’ll see lots of ten year old or older American cars needing a paint job. Girls who have their nails done after school at SME or Olathe don’t work fast food. The bus system is becoming critical….in part to get people to and from work. And it needs to service the Roeland Parks and Merriams and both KCMO and KCK. The only places where people do retail so far.

JOCO and Lees are where the jobs are today…as big business intends to downsize wages. People make a big deal about Obama the foodstamp president, but it’s not Obama at all. Food, energy and rent prices go up but the min wage, on which lower paying jobs are hinged, stays the same. Poorer people are getting poorer. And will until the GOP no longer controls the House. That’ll be 2014. Two long years of less buying power.

Smart officials on both sides of the state line will integrate their bus systems, especially for retailers….and fast food workers. Moreover, there’s damned little public transportation to move lower paid workers from where they live to where they work. We need a much more coordinated crosstown East West bus system linking to a north-south one. Toy trains come from a mentality that was PRE 2008, before the economy got sick.

Russian, I’d say you’ve nailed the stereotype of the upscale suburban kids whose parents are bringing in a six figure income. Perhaps you overplayed it with the leather seats though. I don’t think JOCO is as well off as you suggest. But I’m sure they love that you spread that image with your butterknife.

I don’t see this affluence lasting so long. Corporations really have us by the nutz, even if Obama DID win. We’ll be seeing some more serious salary deflation and that’ll be good for shoppers at Walmart, which thankfully sells cheap Chinese goods people can afford.